Erdoğan as a Machiavellian

By Aydoğan Vatandaş 

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, by abusing state power, successfully consolidated his power in recent years.

He increased his efforts to silence critical media and civil society, seizing the other veto players in the Turkish political system. Even though the Turkish political system is parliamentary in its constitutional design, he did not hesitate to take over the power of the government and manipulate the judiciary as well as the legislative. Erdoğan does not even hesitate to give illegal orders to state officers to seize the private property of Turkish entrepreneurs who are allegedly a threat to national security.

If Machiavelli were to live in the Erdoğan era in Turkey, he would be happy to see that Turkish rulers are seriously and carefully applying what he advised. Because Machiavelli is known for his contribution to preparing states for a political philosophy stripped of moral concern, he would advise Erdoğan and his team to apply the rules and principles for domination according to their own interests, no matter how brutal and immoral they are.

Machiavelli was the first political philosopher of the modern understanding of power. In “The Prince,” he wrote about how to take over another "city" and dominate its people. Therefore, it seems very likely that Erdoğan is a staunch follower of Machiavelli. City (Poly), in that context, refers to political power as well as human settlement, which later on evolved into the “state” of modern times. Erdoğan's ambitions to take over the entire country without any legal basis, as well as his attempts to intervene in Egypt's or Syria's domestic politics, exemplify his Machiavellian leadership style and tendencies.

There are many indications that Erdoğan is following a similar path to that of Hitler in the '30s. Hitler was a great admirer of Napoleon, who admired Machiavelli and was known for his colonial conquest.

In sum, if Machiavelli could see Erdoğan he would probably tell Erdoğan that he is doing his job successfully with his reading of people, his sizing up of changing situations and adjusting his actions accordingly and doing whatever it takes to reach his ends. He would tell Erdoğan to be a hypocrite as much as he can and manipulate the people by telling them whatever they want to hear.

Remaining silent about Erdoğan

It is interesting to see that while the US and its allies promote democracy and oppose authoritarianism, it largely remains silent about Erdoğan's unlawful conduct in Turkey and the region. Why?

Is this because global capitalism and the international system operate on the basis of their own interests as well?

This is also probably why the large majority of Turkish society remains silent about all of Erdoğan's unlawful policies; they simply care about their own stability and security. In a Machiavellian world, there are no moral imperatives in the real world of business and organizations. Machiavelli would suggest to the business elite that they needn't be good. On the contrary, he would suggest that they learn how not to be good and do whatever it takes to get whatever is in their interests. He would also suggest that they see some other surrounding companies seized.

However, Aristotle's view about the problem of equality helps us to understand how and why regimes change over time. He believes that the most important duty of a prudent ruler is to safeguard the regime of a country. However, due to the changing dynamics in the concept of justice in time, regime changes are almost indispensable. He says because some people believe they are equal in some things, they think they are equal in everything. He further elaborates that the problem of different interpretations of equality in society later on become the problem of the oligarchy and aristocracy, which eventually triggers unrest and even leads to revolutions. Thus, Aristotle concludes that all revolutions are carried out in the name of some noble form of distributive justice.

Considering Aristotle's view of how and why regime changes and revolutions emerge, as well as the recent developments in Turkey, one could argue that governmental change is very likely in Turkey, sooner or later.

Even though the ruling party in Turkey is named the “Justice and Development Party,” the recent policies of President Erdoğan provide clear evidence of the failure of distributive justice. Erdoğan is doing everything to prevent the collapse of his power, including manipulating the masses, seizing media companies, bribing the judiciary and controlling other veto players in Turkey's political system. It is therefore safe to predict that the inequality in Turkish society will eventually trigger unrest and may in turn trigger the collapse of the entire system.

Aristotle's words about tyrants help us to understand why President Erdoğan is called a tyrant, like some other dictators in the world:

“Tyranny is the worst regime because the tyrant rules everything for personal good or interest. Plato had already intimated that the most likely source of political tyranny was democracy, where lack of a definite understanding of virtue and murky rule might let a powerful ruler take charge.”